According to a recent poll by CNN, only 25% of Americans think the economic stimulus passed by Congress and signed by the President last year helped the middle class.
In fact, the stimulus plan cut taxes for 95% of the public and saved countless jobs.
So why doesn’t the public know?
Democrats’ inability to inform the public that the stimulus plan cut taxes in a big way should go down as one of their biggest political screw-ups in recent years. Barack Obama felt it necessary, during the State of the Union address, to spend a big chunk of time hammering home the fact that his party cut taxes. And PolitiFact recently decided it had to to check David Axelrod’s claim that the Democrats passed 25 tax cuts last year without the help of Republicans. (PolitiFact has a list of all the tax cuts—they rated the claim “true.”) Both of these events are signs that the fact that the Democrats cut taxes has not sunk in to Americans’ psyches. It’s not common knowledge. If it were, would the Tea Partiers be talking about how they’re “Taxed Enough Already?” Well, probably. But they’d at least be challenged on that.
Liberals are good at policy but not so good at politics. This is just another example of how Democrats back away from selling their ideology.
Tags: Democrats, economic stimulus
